Frozen body of homeless man found in Belleville garage shed 10 days after fire

Police found the body of a 41-year-old man in a burned-out garage shed in downtown Belleville last month, 10 days after firefighters extinguished a fire and cleared the scene.

The family of the victim, Trent Tuttle, who had been living on the streets for years, is wondering how that could happen.

“I’m not trying to blame anyone, but I am looking for answers,” said his mother, Judi Yates, who last saw her son on Jan. 8, when the two went “scrapping” (looking for metal to sell).

Yates’ son Marcus Tuttle waited a few days, hoping his brother would reappear, then filed a missing-person report with Belleville police on Jan. 13.

The fire occurred early Tuesday morning, Jan. 9, in a garage shed behind a condemned two-story brick building at 520 N. Illinois St. It’s widely known as a place where homeless people stay.

Fire Chief Stephanie Mills said Thursday that firefighters responded to a report of a structure fire with heavy smoke and followed “standard protocol” by conducting a quick initial search for occupants and later a more in-depth search once the situation was under control.

“They did not find anything,” Mills said. “The conditions of the structure were unstable. There were holes in the floor of the attic area, and they did the best that they could on scene at that time.”

Mills confirmed that a body was found on Jan. 19 “between two walls” on the upper level of the garage shed.

The fire’s cause is still under investigation, she said.

Family and friends spent days looking for Trent Tuttle and passing out missing-person flyers before people on the street told them his body was “in a wall” of the garage shed, according to his mother, who said she called authorities and begged them to take another look.

“If I hadn’t led them here, my son would still be here,” said Yates, 61, fighting back tears while standing outside the garage shed Wednesday.

Trent Tuttle used methamphetamine and preferred homelessness to staying with family or friends because it required him to answer fewer questions, his mother said. She believes he became addicted after taking painkillers for back surgery more than 10 years ago.

Bitterly cold weather

On Jan. 19, police initially searched the garage shed with a cadaver-sniffing dog that detected no body, according to Yates and Marcus Tuttle. They said it was because Trent Tuttle’s body was frozen.

Low temperatures were mostly in the single digits that week and twice dropped below zero.

Yates said authorities told the family that Trent Tuttle died of smoke inhalation, that his body wasn’t burned and that he was wearing no coat or shoes, which she found odd given the bitter cold.

Marcus Tuttle, 37, an auto-body technician, said he suspected foul play when he heard that his 6-foot-5-inch, 185-pound brother was found in a wall, but after a police detective referred to it as a “cubby hole,” it made more sense to him.

“Maybe he was just trying to keep warm,” Marcus Tuttle said. “You can heat up a small area easier than trying to heat up a big area.”

Marcus Tuttle said he sees why firefighters were being cautious on Jan. 9 while searching the garage shed since its upper level was unstable, but he doesn’t understand how they could deem a burned building “clear” without inspecting every inch.

Family friend Jenn Carlson, 34, hopes that Trent Tuttle’s death was an accident, but she has an uneasy feeling.

“What if it was made to look like an accident?” she asked.

Assistant Chief Mark Heffernan, spokesman for Belleville Police Department, declined to be interviewed Thursday about the missing-person case due to the open death investigation and the fact that homeless and transient witnesses haven’t yet been located.

Heffernan emailed the following statement:

“During the time Tuttle was missing, detectives interviewed numerous subjects known to be acquaintances with Tuttle, conducted checks at several hospitals and rehab facilities, conducted canvasses for digital evidence, applied for a search warrant for Tuttles’ social media and cell phone data, checked several local law enforcement detention facilities, checked local homeless shelters, checked several vacant structures in the City, all with no success in locating Tuttle.”

Yates questioned why police hadn’t distributed information about her son’s disappearance or death publicly as of this week.

“We asked for a press release, and the detective said ‘no’ because it was an open investigation,” she said. “He said once you put a press release out there, (people are) not going to talk to you, especially the homeless.”

‘Infectious’ sense of humor

Friends and family describe Trent Tuttle as an artistic, kind and energetic man and a sharp dresser with an “infectious” sense of humor and a knack for bringing people together, despite his drug habit.

Trent Tuttle graduated from Belleville East High School, worked in roofing and rehabbing as a younger man and recently earned money by doing odd jobs and selling scrap metal. He was divorced with two children.

Trent Tuttle regularly saw Judi Yates and her husband, Doug Yates, some of his six siblings, other family members and friends, including Carlson and her boyfriend, Dylan Rea, who live a block away from the condemned building on North Illinois. He got around on a bicycle.

“He was caring,” Carlson said. “He had a big heart. He was polite. He was mannerly. He went out of his way to help people.”

Trent Tuttle had a long police record, with most charges related to drugs (meth and cannabis possession and delivery) or homelessness (camping in a public place, open burning and dumping garbage).

Judi Yates said she knew that Trent Tuttle slept in the condemned building sometimes, so she got a bad feeling when she and Marcus Tuttle drove past it on the morning of Jan. 9 and saw fire trucks.

Yates wonders why none of Trent Tuttle’s “buddies” told firefighters he was in the garage shed when the fire broke out.

“They were probably afraid of getting into trouble,” she said.

The city of Belleville has posted signs calling the condemned building “unfit for human occupancy or use” and telling people to keep out. Several windows are broken out, and rooms are filled with trash and debris.

When asked if anyone had warned firefighters that a person might be in the burning garage shed, Fire Chief Mills said, “There were two passersby toward the end of operations, as I understand it, that asked if we had found anyone. They did not say there was someone.”

At one point, Yates said, an acquaintance of Trent Tuttle told her that his frozen body had been seen in a different abandoned building near the old Maxwell’s restaurant, leading police to search that area.

Today, the gray-sided garage shed off North Illinois is still standing but gutted, full of charred items and surrounded by orange plastic fencing. The yard is strewn with trash and debris, including propane tanks, a metal shopping cart, cooler, backpack, furniture and clothes. Graffiti messages such as “WATCH YOUR BACK” and “WE SEE YOU” are scrawled on walls.

A memorial service for Trent Tuttle will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at Caseyville Moose Lodge 4.

“You always think somebody’s going to be there,” Marcus Tuttle said. “You never think, ‘One day I’m not going to have them.’ I thought we would be older before something like this happened.”